Tycoon
Contents |
Host
Joe Duttine (voiceover)
Co-hosts
Broadcast
Peter Jones TV for ITV1, 20 June 2007 to present
Synopsis
A bunch of bright young things go to work in a riverside office for ten weeks in order to prove that their idea for making squillions of pounds is the best. Peter Jones provides start-up capital and expertise and can invest a limited amount of extra money at his own discretion. Six businesses start; those (if any) that are still afloat at the end go to a viewers' vote with the winner carrying off all the profits.
So take your pick. Is this...
- a) A mix between The Apprentice and Dragons' Den,
- b) Innovation Nation with a post-Apprentice spin,
- c) Make Me a Million with everyone sharing the same mentor,
- d) A watered-down version of Jones' own American Inventor, or
- e) All of the above?
And no, we didn't mean for that to rhyme, it just turned out that way. Anyway, the answer is surely "all of the above", or at least, "a mish-mash of bits of all of the above". It does hang together reasonably well, but somewhere along the line it seems to have lost a bit of "bite". In particular, it rather lacks the cutthroat element of other business-related hits, something that will either be its saving or its downfall. Indeed, the camaraderie between contestants is something of a distinguishing feature, and while in a way it's quite cheering, we're left thinking that if these people are meant to be in competition, it might help if they showed it a bit more.
Joe Duttine's voiceover is similarly low-key, happily steering clear of the forced gravitas and audibly raised eyebrows of other narrators (yes, we're looking at you, Mr Halliley). There's one running gag: one of the contestants originally introduced herself as Elizabeth Make Things Happen Hackford, so Duttine refers to her as such throughout in a completely deadpan fashion. It could be argued that Duttine sticks too closely to a neutral tone, and that a mass-audience ITV show like this would benefit from a voiceover with a little more personality.
We don't have a problem with the narration, though. Here's a problem: episode one, two would-be tycoons come in with an idea for bright pink garden tools to be marketed under the name "Girlie Gardening". They're proud of the idea and don't want to change it. The next time we see them, they've started selling limited edition sweatshirts branded "Sod". Whoa! Where did that come from? There's a whole creative process here that we're not privy to, and that in a show like this, we should be privy to.
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Inventor
Music
Paul Farrer
